Sure enough, in the huge march, each detachment drew out the "night patrol" and turned into a "military levy team", this group of soldiers scattered along the prescribed route, carrying Khitan fire pipes, iron forks, bows and arrows, etc., nine people in a group, along the entire area like a grate "washed" villages and market towns, whether it belonged to the Roman natives, or Turks, or Armenians, etc., after kicking the door open, he took out a note with a receipt written on it, If someone stuffs it into the other party's hands, if no one sticks it on the door panel, and then it is "requisitioned" livestock, grain, oil and salt, etc., and those who dare to resist and escape, the cavalry team will soon follow and encircle and suppress it. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

However, compared with the logistics of other knightly warfare in the Middle Ages, this is still a bit of a civilizational progress: from bandit-style robbery and various crimes, to a unified and effective compulsory expropriation.

In a village on the edge of the bishop's meadow, in a village on the edge of the bishop's meadow, the Grand Patron, surrounded by his staff and guards, graciously and generously handed a money bag to a family of Armenian inhabitants who were trembling on his knees, touched the heads of the boys and girls of the family, and stuffed them with a few "Tarsus golden apples" (citrus) and Trabzon nuts in their clothes.

"The army is forced, and the supplies are scarce, and when I pacify this plateau, you can take these receipts and go to the Xinhui edict to cash in the monetary return, or the corresponding land." Gawain crossed his waist with one hand, his cloak cocked, he looked very imposing, and his tone was also very kind.

The Armenian man complimented him again and again, and he looked up to see behind the great patron a group of pyromers with umbrella crowns and feathers on their hats, leather bags full of dry rations or Khitan snow on their chests and belts—their aim was to plunder us first and then use their own, so that the army's combat logistics would be safe.

"Your Highness, please come here, come here." Several priests and painters accompanying the army, holding shelves and pens, kept shouting under a tree more than ten feet away, and quickly drew this scene of "harmony between the army and the people" for future generations.

So Gawain smiled even brighter, facing the direction of the painter's finger, the beautiful mustache was slightly upturned, and the money bag in his hand was hanging just an inch in the palm of the Armenian people, and it did not move for a long time, so that the painters could freeze and the priests recorded.

Several generals or soldiers of the fire throwing regiment also squinted and unconsciously moved forward, hoping to be in the same frame as the main guarantor.

"Bang bang bang!" The whole earth shook, Gawain's purse did not move, but the villager who stretched out his hand to continue trembled - at the rear of the village, suddenly there was a sound of angry scolding, followed by a deafening sound of shooting, and in the midst of the smoke rolling, several villagers who refused to pay, holding their bodies that had been shot by firearms and arrows, with stains of blood, slowly fell down the courtyard wall, and at a distance of ten feet, a group of firethrowers re-stabilized the weapon that was still emitting sparks and smoke after shooting, Then several stragglers shouted and drew their swords and stepped forward to assassinate all those who were not yet dead.

Another group of soldiers took out the pack beasts and goods from the courtyard of the dead and walked towards the marching column.

The coin slammed into the bag and fell into the palm of the kneeling villager with it, and the women and children behind him were frightened and cried, turning their heads to look at the tragic scene over there, Gawain also had a heavy expression, and waved his hand at the painters over there, and they removed the easel, "You will naturally understand after becoming my subjects and officially naturalizing the country of Tarsus." My goodness is far from being offset by this little evil in front of me. The patron's blue eyes were full of gentleness and pity, and then he turned and walked away.

In the evening, Gawain ordered all the supplies to be concentrated on the hill called Malacupias, about eight gi li from the "Bishop's Steppe", consisting of several cliffs and the ruins of an ancient fortress, with the front to control the plains and passages in front, and the back just right for camping: Gawain left six tribes of six hundred frontier men here to guard all the peasants and baggage, under the command of Merlot, "Count of Tarsus". After that, he personally commanded two brigades and the rest of the 100 frontier people, and set up camp in a fan shape directly in front of the Malakupies Mountain, so as to ensure that the enemy would attack from all directions, and that there would be a team to fight the enemy.

About the early hours of the next morning, five hundred Danishmund cavalry, who had arrived from the city of Melitane, launched an armed reconnaissance of the camping on the Marakupies.

"Disperse them." Gawain, who had climbed the hill where the command post was located, shouted as he pointed to the Danishmund's cavalry coming from his back in the morning light.

In the dust, five hundred Danishmund cavalry stormed several of the frontier army's vanguard camps, breaking two of them, but soon more frontier troops with bows and arrows and weapons besieged and counterattacked. Under the rising sun, the arrows fired by the two sides shuttled like rain.

The rest of the battalions of the Guardian Army all stood behind the flags or on the hills, and all of them stopped and watched the battlefield in front of them, and did not move until they received orders.

Soon several squadrons of red-handed cavalry from the flanks, the banners of the little golden hands shining brightly, broke the formation of the Danishmund's cavalry with their swords, and the Turks soon scattered on horseback and fled towards the place of departure.

The two squadrons pursued more than a dozen fallen captives and forcibly pursued more than a dozen gulli, and after brutally torture the captives, an intolerable Ghazi warrior confessed to the men of the Great Emir Merrick:

Merrick built four ramparts along the ring to the west of the inner city of Mélitane, with the northernmost of which was the weakest.

"The enemy is providing false information, give me to kill the Gazi who tried to deceive us." The chief guarantor sitting in the tent said after reading the confession.

Nagzi's head was quickly cut off, and the other captives had no choice but to confess their true disposition: the northernmost ramparts concealed a huge elite force, because they had to guard against both the Tarsus Guardian Army and the Tuma Division of Trabzon, while the rest of the ramparts were star-shaped around it according to the terrain, and there were cavalry insides for quick counterattack reinforcements.

In addition, Merrik had a mobile force of 4,000 at his disposal in Mélitane, and his strategy was to use the western fortress group to trap Gawain's army, and then wait for an opportunity to attack, either to cut off Gawain's rear route, or to attack Gawain's baggage camp at Malacupies: the entire Episcopal steppe and Melitene were almost entirely flat, especially for the Turks to gallop through.

After receiving this information, most of the generals advocated a slow advance, bypassing the bulwark in the north of the enemy's army, using part of their forces to form a camp around it, and then using other teams to monitor Merrick's movements, in order to ensure that it lasted long.

However, Genat General Monomachus alone proposed a more radical and risky strategy: that is, according to Merrick's wishes, with a grenadier regiment equipped with artillery carriages, with the cooperation of the border people's army, directly attacked the northern barrier to lure Merrick out of the city, and the main guarantor gathered mobile infantry brigades and cavalry to invite him to attack and fight him to the death. (。 )